


Son of the Sea

by WishingRoses



Series: Son of the Sea [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crystal Gem Lance, F/M, Flashbacks, Foreshadowing, Half-Gem Lance, I first made this idea like four years ago and finally had the time, I promise, It'll all make sense soon, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Lance has been through a lot, Lance is Blue Diamond's Son, Like...REALLY slow, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow burn Klance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22534036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WishingRoses/pseuds/WishingRoses
Summary: ‘And on good days, he actually let himself believe he really was human, just like everyone else. But on bad days, when he was feeling that crushing loneliness that had swept over him so many times before, when he ached to go back home and when he longed to tell someone here anything at all, he kept finding it harder and harder to keep up his facade.Especially now, when he found himself snapping into wakefulness at late-o-clock with tears streaming down his face and a body that won’t stop shaking.He wants, he wants, he needs somebody to tell.’OrIn which Lance is the son of Blue Diamond/Lapis Lazuli. And he has a past that the rest of Team Voltron are quickly realizing was much more than it seemed.Everything was, really.
Relationships: Allura & Coran & Hunk & Keith & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt & Shiro, Blue Diamond/Original Characters, Keith/Lance (Voltron), Lance & Blue Lion (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) & Original Character(s), Lance (Voltron) and Blue Diamond, Lance and the Crystal Gems
Series: Son of the Sea [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1621336
Comments: 25
Kudos: 93





	Son of the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys, I'm Wish! And welcome to the start of the glorious, four-years-in-the-making-brain baby I made. Can you all believe I started this idea when it wasn't even public knowledge that Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond yet? I began this with the idea that Lance would be just a Lapis Lazuli, but as time went on, I found that it would be more interesting if I added this deeper twist. I've had years and years of getting this story underway, and now I finally have the guts to get it out to you guys. 
> 
> Seriously, this fic is my baby, and the reason I made my account in the first place. And I am ready to finally share with you all the world of Half Gem!Lance that has been sitting in the corner of my mind for longer than it should have been. 
> 
> With all that said and done, I hope you guys enjoy. 
> 
> (And yes, I know it might seem confusing right now - especially the flashbacks - but like the tags said it'll all make sense soon. Like Rebecca Sugar I love writing that juicy foreshadowing.)

_October 15, 2314_

From the moment he first walked into the Garrison on his very first day, Lance knew he couldn’t tell anyone who he really was. 

It wasn’t that he couldn’t _trust_ anyone with the knowledge. Because yeah, Hunk was really cool, and he could probably handle the knowledge that his new friend wasn’t all he appeared to be with ease. But still, the idea of telling anyone not related to the matter was...was _terrifying_ more than anything. 

But he wished he could. Oh, how he _longed_ to say something more than a couple words about his ‘big family’ and his home on the beach. He wanted _so badly_ to tell Hunk - who in only a few days of knowing him already felt like he’d known him his whole life - what was truly happening, and what he truly was. 

He wanted so badly to tell his new best friend that he wasn’t human. 

Not entirely, anyway. 

And even though the very people he’d grown to love and welcome as family never told him he couldn’t, never told him it was a bad idea to, never said to him with knowing eyes and serious faces, ‘ _no, you can’t say a thing, you know that, don’t you?’_ he still couldn’t bring himself to utter a single word. 

Even after forming a close bond with Hunk and having him become his ‘sole confidant’ he couldn’t. Even after moving up into fighter class like Garnet knew he would, he still couldn’t. And even after getting thrown into _space_ and becoming a part of an intergalactic _war_ , he still kept his lips sealed tight. 

After a while, it just became second thought. 

And on good days, he actually let himself believe he really _was_ human, just like everyone else. (Minus Allura and Coran later down the line) 

But on bad days, when he was feeling that crushing loneliness that had swept over him so many times before, when he ached to go back home and when he longed to tell _someone_ here _anything at all_ , he kept finding it harder and harder to keep up his facade. 

Especially now, when he found himself snapping into wakefulness at late-o-clock with tears streaming down his face and a body that won’t stop shaking. 

_He wants, he wants, he_ needs _somebody to tell._

_But he can’t, he can’t, he can’t._

And as he waits for the shaking to subside, as he watches the ice that suddenly surrounds him melt, and the shadows in the corner of the too-large room dance, he thinks to himself _he isn’t sure he can handle any more of this._

“I want to go home.” He whispers into the dead of the night. 

But he knows he can’t.

* * *

_March 10, 2308_

_“You’re home now, Little Gem.”_

_Rose’s warm, sweet voice pulls Lance once again from his spiraling thoughts and he looks up into her deep magenta eyes._

_They’re sparkling with love, so much love, and maybe if he wasn’t so_ tired _and_ hurt _and_ sick _he might have felt it too._

_But he can’t._

_“The others are in their own rooms, so it’s just going to be the two of us for now, but don’t worry, you’ll meet them soon.”_

_He’s so exhausted he can barely register her words, much less have a reaction. But Rose doesn’t say a thing about that, just walks up to a large door, which glows a bright_ _pink as soon as she gets near, and into the room that opens up for them._

_If he were more awake, and less_ like this _he might have said the room Rose brought him in was beautiful._

_But he can’t._

_Instead, he says nothing. As he has for_ so long _and he continues not to say anything as Rose lays him gently down on a bed that materialized out of nowhere and tucks the_ _blankets over him._

_He doesn’t say a thing, because he knows he won’t be able to. But somehow, as he looks into Rose’s warm, warm eyes as his consciousness leaves his body, he starts to_ _think that maybe, that might be okay._

________

_March 29, 2308_

_“Dude! Your powers are so cool!”_

_Amethyst’s face, suddenly appearing in his vision, knocks out his control and causes the ball of water to splash onto the ground. Once his heart stops racing and his mind_ _stops screaming, Lance shoots the purple Gem an annoyed look. She only looks back with a half-apologetic grin, her own gem lighting up as she brings her whip out._

_“Sorry for makin’ you lose focus, Little Gem,” she apologizes, twisting her whip around her hand to get a good grip. “But hey, why don’t we do something fun? You’ve been_ _here a couple weeks now. You up for a little sparring?”_

_He_ has _been here for a couple weeks. And he_ has _been feeling a little better as the days went by. Rose said his healing would take a little longer though - a few months at_ _least_ , _and that as soon as he’s better he can even go on missions with the rest of them. As a_ true _Crystal Gem._

_(That’s what he is now. He’s still having trouble believing it.)_

_But he doesn’t want to fight. The minimal use of his power just now was just because he’d been bored. If he used it more...and he used it to_ fight _again…_

_(Even if it was just Amethyst, and even if it was just a spare, he doesn’t think he can do anything yet. Maybe he never would.)_

_So, no, he decides, giving the slightly taller Gem a shake of his head. Amethyst only seems a little disappointed - but it still makes him feel guilty - and let’s go of her whip,_ _letting it dematerialize on its way down. She puts a finger to her chin, already beginning to think of something else the two of them could do._

_Her face lights up._

_“Hey, wanna help me build a trash-castle in my room?”_

_And as he nods, actually eager for reasons he doesn’t even know, that happy feeling he felt back when Rose first brought him to this place returns._

_He lets it. But he tries his hardest not to grab onto it for fear of losing it once more._

_________

_May 21, 2308_

_Garnet is strange, he thinks, a couple months after he had been brought to the temple._

_She doesn’t talk much, and she doesn’t show that much outward emotion, but somehow, Lance knows she feels much more than she shows._

_It’s in the way her voice softens when she’s talking to him, even in the midst of something serious going on. It’s in the way she takes to carrying him even more than Rose,_ _and so much so that some days he almost never touches the ground._

_It’s in the way she always seems to_ know _what he’s trying to say, even if he can’t say it himself. It’s either because she’s really good at reading people or she literally_ can _read people._

_(He hopes it’s not the latter. If his new pseudo-mother could read the things in his mind he’d likely traumatize her.)_

_But, getting back to the point, Garnet is most strange because she doesn’t ask questions._

_She’s never asked him ‘how are you feeling today?’, or ‘what’s wrong?’ or the other dozens of questions the others bombarded him with every day. Instead of all that, she_ _was just_ there _. Offering silent support._

_(Maybe in a couple years he’ll find himself asking her why she did that, and he’ll hear her say, with so much love in her eyes that “that just wasn’t what he needed.”)_

_So, yes, Garnet is definitely strange. But as he lays there with his head half on her lap, with her hands carding through his long hair, silently comforting him after another_ _rough night, he knows he doesn’t mind it at all._

_In fact, he welcomes it._

_Because he knows deep down that this place is starting to feel more and more like home._

______________________

_June 18, 2308_

_Lance knew Pearl hated him._

_Well, actually, she hated him_ at first _. She doesn’t_ still _hate him, and he can see that now, months after he became a Crystal Gem. Gone were the subtle looks he felt out of_ _the corner of his eye. Gone were the pursed lips and tightened features she pulled every time he was close to her._

_He really was relieved. With her hostility gone, he finally, truly felt at home here now._

_But that still left the matter as to_ why _she had acted like that in the first place._

_(He had no way of truly asking her yet though, so for now all he could do was theorize.)_

_Was it because he was only half gem? Or that he was half human? Was it because Rose had found him, and took him in, and showered him with love? Did she feel neglected_ _because of that? He had seen Pearl’s looks towards Rose and knew she felt something towards her._

_(He didn’t want to be the cause of her pain, so if some days he backed away from Rose and opted to be with Garnet, he hoped she knew it was a sign of his understanding..._ _And he was used to people hating him anyway.)_

_But now her hostility was gone, and it was all resolved, and so here he was with Pearl; just hanging out together on one of the temple’s many hands._

_Well, in reality they were building a washing machine, but it was still technically hanging out._

_“I think that should do it for that side,” came Pearl’s voice, knocking him out of his thoughts. Lance looked up from where he was holding one of the panelings Pearl was_ _screwing onto the washer. One of Pearl’s long, slender hands lowered down to him, silently asking for the piece in his hands._

_“Just one more panel and I think we’ll be done,” Pearl told him. He caught sight of her bright blue eyes flicking towards him before focusing back on the work in front of her._ _“Then you’ll finally be able to wash those clothes of yours properly, and we can ditch that other method.”_

_He nodded, relieved as well to no longer be having to wash all his clothes in a basin._

_“Speaking of your clothes, it seems as though we’ll have to head into town and get you some more,” Pearl says then, right as she fixes the last panel on the machine. This_ _time, Lance actually meets her eyes, and she laughs a bit at the expression he gives her._

_“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’, then.”_

  
  


_…_

  
  


_It might have been the beach, and the vast ocean that reminded him of his first home, or the kind people that helped to heal and continued to heal him, or maybe even both._ _But Lance knew that he wouldn’t ever regret taking Rose’s hand, and being led into a brighter, better world._

_He wants to go back._

_(But he knows he can’t)_

* * *

_October 15, 2314_

“ **Look out.** ” 

Lance only barely has time to turn Blue around and shoot a beam of ice towards their attacker before the enemy’s own blast hit him instead. Unlike his enemy, Lance manages to dodge the blast aimed for him, by seemingly a hair, and whips back around to face Green and Yellow, both in their own heavy battles. 

“Thanks, Blue,” He calls to the Lion in his head. Over the rush of adrenaline he hears her purr back in response. Over the comms, to Pidge and Hunk, he says, “Coming in for backup! Because _holy cow,_ there’s so many of these guys!” 

And ironically, right as he says that, several dozen more Galra fighters just so happened to show up to the fight. _Why is it only after I say it?_ He thinks with an internal sigh. _Am I cursed?_

“Where do they keep coming from!?” Hunk yells, as five Galra ships aim for him simultaneously. Lance can hear his yells of panic as Yellow only manages to dodge three of the blasts, but takes the other two right to the side. 

“ _Hunk!_ ” Lance and Pidge both scream, but with all the chaos they aren’t able to get close to him. 

“There must be a mother ship somewhere, if we could only find it!” Pidge tells him, breathless as she flits around the blasts. “I’m sure...Shiro and Keith already have though...But we still can’t reach them on our comms so there’s no way to tell!” 

Lance’s face turned down into a grimace. Right before the barrage of Galra fighters he, Hunk and Pidge were bombarded with, they’d been split up from Shiro and Keith when they found themselves inside a rather large asteroid belt. Which had been sparking with some sort of energy that both Shiro’s and Keith’s Lions had been hit by. Since they’d been hit, their comms were down, and the rest of the team had no idea where they were. 

_They could have crashed onto a planet, they could be really hurt, they could be surrounded by the Galra like we are-_ Lance’s mind, whether he wanted it to or not, gave him all the scenarios it could think of what happened to his teammates. With a shake of his head, he tried to think of something brighter. - _Or they could be perfectly fine and have_ _found the mother ship like Pidge said and are working on putting a stop to this fleet._

_Or...They could have been compromised._

He sucked in a sharp breath at the thought, but Blue cut in with her usual reassurances, and reminded him of what was in front of him. “ **You need to focus,** ” She purred. “ **Still in battle**.” 

“Right, right,” He shook himself, tightening his grip on the controls. Another blast of Blue’s ice - hitting three Galra ships this time, to Lance’s delight - had his focus returning, but his hope still held by a string. If only there was something _more_ he could do. 

He managed to get to Hunk as he shook himself off of the damage he took (thank goodness for Yellow’s high defense) and the two of them sliced their way through Galra jets, dodging as much as they could. Pidge flew in beside them and suddenly it was all three of them, back to back, shooting at the enemy and protecting one another. 

Lance started to feel that string of hope strengthen in size, as he and his friends took down ship after ship, until he realized something that made him freeze. 

“Guys,” He called on his comm. “They’ve still got us surrounded and...and they just keep coming.” 

From what little ways away he can see of the black expanse of space, Lance spotted multiple little dots appearing from seemingly out of nowhere. Out of those dots - no, _portals_ \- flew dozens and dozens of Galra fighter ships. 

And they were all joining the fight. 

For each ship he, Hunk or Pidge took down, it seemed as though another three took their place. Until all he could see was a literal _army_ of Galra, completely outnumbering the three of them. Lance’s grip on his controls tightened so much his knuckles went white and ice started to creep up his arms. _They had them surrounded - this might have been their plan_ all along. 

“We’re too outnumbered now, we’re never going to be able to hold them off!” Pidge yelled, but still she hit as many ships as she could. And still, it never seemed to make an impact. 

“Way to stay positive, Pidgey,” Lance yelled back, though that was incredibly hypocritical of him to say. Any hope he had of getting out of this safely was shattered the minute those extra fleets came into the fray. 

_Yeah, if only I could do something_ more _,_ he thought to himself again, as he looked at the grim situation in front of him. _But if I do that, then they’ll_ know _…_

He looks to Hunk and Pidge, still cutting down what they could, then back to his own fight, where his hands were seemingly on autopilot as he stayed stuck in his head - still able to be shooting down _everything and anything that wasn’t his friends-_

He _could_ do something more. He _should_ do something more. 

  
  


But he knows he can’t. 

  
  
  


….

  
  


Later in the fight, when all three of them are worn down and completely spent, and their enemies still stand strong, an explosion goes off in the distance. 

Three seconds later, Lance’s comms come online as he hears Red and Black roar from behind him, and the Galra ships speed away. 

Defeated. Or at the very least chased away.

It was close, and it could have gone better ( _could have, had he done his 100 percent but he didn’t and why didn’t he he_ knew _he could he_ knew _in the end they wouldn’t hate him but he still didn’t)_ but all five Lions and all five Paladins were able to make it out safe and alive. For better or worse. 

(And Lance could have felt relieved. He didn’t have to reveal anything, but at the same time he didn’t _really_ need to back then. He could have happily walked to his room, secret safe on his shoulders, knowing there wasn’t any reason he had to give himself away. He could have.

But he didn’t)

* * *

_October 31, 2302_

_*[Speaking in Spanish]_

_It’s Halloween, and one of Lance’s favorite times of the year. He’s five, and he’s fallen in love with everything superhero. By September he’d already known what he wanted to be that year._

_“[Let’s get that one! I wanna be Aquaman!]” He told his Papa, jumping up and down and accidentally letting loose a stream of water from his excited hands. Not bothered by it at all though - in fact, it only encourages his excitement and certainty, enough for him to make more - he says, “[See, see? I wanna be him this year ‘cause I’m just like him, Papa, we both make water!]”_

_His Papa smiles down at him, but Lance can see it’s a bit tense around the edges. The older man’s hazel eyes flick around the store they’re in, until he takes a breath when he apparently finds no one nearby._

_Papa bends down and puts a hand on his shoulder. “[Lance, what have I told you about using your powers in public?]”_

_He’s not angry at him, Lance knows this, but he still feels bad. “[You said not to…Because people could see it...]” Lance says back, and looked down at his hands. Water still trickles out in pools on his palms from seemingly nowhere. On the edges of the pools a little bit of ice begins to form. He looks up then, suddenly afraid. Like his Papa only a few moments ago, he catches nobody around._

_“[That’s right, my son. People could see. People_ have _seen.]” Lance’s eyes snapped back to his Papa, but saw that he didn’t look angry or afraid. Just apologetic. “[I know I keep telling you it’s nothing to be ashamed of, and it never was, but...The people here don’t understand Gems, Lance.]”_

_Lance sniffs, and brings his still-dripping hands up to his chest. If anything good can come out of this little accident, at least he’ll have more storage in his gem. Papa’s hands come down to rest on his as Lance touches his gem, and the water enters the teardrop-shaped jewel._

_“[There we go. Don’t worry. They’ll be plenty of time to use your magic at home. Just...Not here, okay?]” And Lance nods back, knowing well not to argue._

_He might not have understood Papa’s reasoning for why he couldn’t be himself in public yet, young as he is. But he knew he’d understand someday._

_He just didn’t expect it to be so soon._

________

_‘Papa was right.’ Lance thinks a year or two later, as he and his elder half-brother quickly run through the streets of Veradero. As they run, Lance looks behind him, panicked, making sure_ they _aren’t following. ‘He was right. The people here_ don’t _understand Gems.’_

_Much like the time at the store, where his powers acted up in his excitement, Lance had had another loss of control. Only this time, on a much larger scale._

_He definitely didn’t mean to blow apart the historic fountain in the middle of town in a fit of panic. It was just an accident, he swears._

_The citizens of Veradero didn’t accept that answer, though. And the kids who’d previously been ganging up on him gladly amplified the people’s bad opinions._

_So now he and Marco, whom Lance never wanted to get involved in the mess but he was there and insisted one helping, were running from fifteen very religious townspeople who were screaming at Lance that he was a demon sent from hell._

_It was all very hard for a seven year old to hear._

_And even after he and Marco got away, having snuck into a tight crevice under one of the old bridges, Lance could still hear their cries of ‘[Demon child!]”, “[Go back to where you belong!]”, “[Burn in hell!]”, and “[I will not have you corrupting this town, filth! You should never have been born!]” swimming in his head, plaguing his thoughts and seeping into his very soul._

_(And that last one had been shouted with a brick thrown at him. Lance should count himself lucky that he’s a fast runner.)_

_Now he sat under the bridge he’d escaped to, curled up on his brother’s lap and clutching his jacket with white-knuckled fists. Marco holds him back just as tightly._

_After regaining his breath Lance looks up into Marco’s hazel eyes and asks him if what those people said were true._

_“[No, no, Lance, look at me,]” Marco says immediately, panic in his voice. “[You are not a demon. They just don’t understand you. Please, little brother, don’t listen to them. You aren’t bad. Don’t you remember what mama told you?]”_

_And Lance remembers. He watched those videos she gave to him with rapt attention, every time. Deep down he knew better than to agree with people who had no say in whether or not he was a good person._

_Right now, however, he found that he just couldn’t accept that._

_(Maybe someday he’d accept Marco’s words as the real truth, that both him, and Lance’s mother were right all along._

_But right know he knew he couldn’t.)_

* * *

_October 17, 2314_

His fingers were numb against the smooth box that held his oldest possessions. Little trinkets, video recordings, old pictures, all of that lay within the contents of the deep blue box in his arms. Lance found himself picking up a certain recording, the title written in delicate cursive. He reaches out for it yet again, like so many times before. 

It’s the first video his birth mother made for him, and the first one his father gave to him when he was old enough to understand it. He had her words ingrained into his memory, could play it word for word, but still he presses play. 

Maybe he just wants to hear her voice. Maybe he just wants to see her. Even if it was just a video. 

He presses play. The clear picture of his mother standing outside his old home fills him with the usual feeling of melancholy, as it has every single time since _that day._ He tries his hardest just to listen to her voice, to focus on her form. Drown out everything else.

“{- _I need you to know how much I_ wanted _to have you, and how much I hope you have a better life than...than I did._ }” 

His eyes traced every inch of her form. From her deep blue hair to the ocean colored eyes he got from her. They rested on the gleam of the gemstone that lay on her chest. An exact replica of the one on his own. 

He clutched his gem through his shirt. As he does whenever he’s feeling upset. 

“{- _The life I am giving you is_ yours _to decide. Be who you want to be, go wherever you want to go. And don’t be afraid of using your powers, the ones that make you so special; so unique. And...And please don’t_ ever _be afraid of yourself, or afraid to talk to the people close to you. Your father and your brother are here for you. Because they are your family. Please remember to_ always _value the bond you have with your family.}”_

Listening to her words, the ones he knows from heart, Lance finds he isn’t sure whether or not he can do as she so desperately asks of him now. 

“{- _And the humans of this world might not understand you completely, but I know_ she _protected this planet for a reason. Just as you shouldn’t fear yourself, please don’t ever fear the people of this world. Because who knows? Some of them might even become your friends.”}_

Her message ends, and he finds himself staring blankly at her suddenly still form, still active and turned on, daring to be replayed again. It’s not because he doubts her message. He never has. Lance had always taken her words for him into his heart and always held onto them as tight as he could. It was just…

“How can I ever tell them, when so many people have just...hurt me?” He whispers to her still picture. “I _want_ to tell the team, I _want_ them to know so I can do _more_ I just...How can I be sure they’ll take it well, like _they_ did?” 

“...How can I be sure they won’t fear _me_?” 

  
  


The shadows on his walls are his only answer, dancing and twisting in the quiet of the night. 

….

She watches, and she waits. 

She watches the still form of Him from far, far away. Far enough away, but still closely connected. Loosely tethered to the string that keeps her from completely shattering once and for all. 

She waits for her chance. She waits and she waits. Gathers her strength, and she contemplates. 

It’s amusing to see, she thinks, seeing Him like this. She wonders if He knows she’s watching Him. 

She wants to do _more_ , and she wants to **hurt** , and she wants Him to **see her**. 

But for now, she knows she can’t. Not yet.

For now, she has to wait. 

And so she watches, and she waits. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Chapters will be updated sporadically, so please remember to check back regularly. Wish Out!


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